Family History in the Pale of Settlement

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Tag Archives: Famous Players movie theatre

In this second post about my MIL, Diana of the Shulman clan (well, the family seems about as big as a clan), I want to address a job she had as a young woman while she still lived in Toronto.

First, let me mention that until she was an adult and chose the name Diana, she was not called Dinah Leah by her siblings, but Della. I don’t know what her parents called her, but in general to her family she was Della.

Della/Diana was an usherette during the early 1940s. This was a very desirable job for someone young. Movie theatres in those days were often beautiful venues and to make the entire experience pleasurable to patrons, usherettes wore smart uniforms and checked tickets, assisted people to seats, distributed refreshments, and were generally helpful go-tos for movie-goers.

One of the theatres Diana worked at was Loew’s, which was one of the big movie theatre chains. The link shows a photo of the theatre we believe she worked at.

It is possible that Diana is wearing the Loew’s uniform in this portrait. However, if we knew the identity of the man in the newspaper or magazine she is holding, it might help.

A nighttime shot of Loew’s is in a blog post about the old movie theatres of Toronto. Fascinating article!

Diana also worked for Famous Players in Toronto. In the following photograph it is easy to see that she was Head Usherette.

Seeing these photos does make me wish we still had businesses that are based on humans working face to face with other humans. Instead, our current culture has this push to automate everything imaginable.